TELESPHORUS, POPE, saint, martyr. — St. Irenaeus places him in the seventh position after the Apostles and says that he ended his days with a “glorious martyrdom” (Adv. Haer., III, 3, 3; Eusebius, Hist. eccl., IV, 10; V, 6, 4).
His pontificate lasted 11 years (Lib. Pont., p. LXXX) and is placed approximately between 125 and 136. Eusebius (Hist. eccl., IV, 5, 5 and loc. cit.) and the Liberian Catalogue (ed. Duchesne, in Lib. Pont., I, pp. 2-3) assign to him, with some uncertainty, the years 127-38. The Liber Pontificalis says he was of Greek origin and attributes to him, without any foundation, the institution of the seven-week Lenten fast and of midnight Masses at Christmas with the singing of the Gloria (the 2nd ed. instead speaks of the Gloria in the daily Mass, which is to be celebrated after Terce). The same source says he was buried in the Vatican on 2 January. The Hieronymian Martyrology does not commemorate him, but Florus in his Martyrology (9th century) transformed an African martyr named T., listed in the Hieronymian on 5 January, into St. T., pope, and this identification is still preserved in the Roman Martyrology. In the Missal, the commemoration of St. T. (5 January) first appears in the typical edition of 1604.